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Saturday, March 10, 2012

I just feel like want to respond to an article titled “Free Stuff May Not Be Free” by Azizi Ali that I read few weeks ago in the local Personal Money magazine published in Feb 2012. He is a writer, speaker and coach on money matters and a lot of useful personal finance tips have been given by him either his seminars or his books. In fact, I learn a lot from him!

Let’s see what are my responses for some of of key summary messages by him in that article:

Azizi Ali: I’ve learnt in life is that free things can be expensive!

[My Comment]: I’ve learnt in life that paid things can be even more expensive as well! You pay but you get nothing and you also waste your time.

Azizi Ali: Most things that are free will cost you a lot in non-monetary term.

[My Comment]: Is this true? I found that it happens to most thing that are NOT free too. In fact, I think the chances of paid stuff costs even more is higher because you pay both monetary and non-monetary term!

Azizi Ali: Free things are almost always not convenient. You get second-rate treatment when you get things for free.

[My Comment]: Maybe true but this is an opportunity cost that we’re talking about and the most important thing is it is vary from one to another. E.g. Not convenient but it gives you lower opportunity cost than you pay, you may still want to go for free things!

Azizi Ali: By willing to pay, you get to choose the best (people, place, gadgets and environment), get to choose the time and place, and can be in control and get far better treatment.

[My Comment]: Best people? May not be. A lot of best people doing free stuff! or maybe I should say the other way round. A lot of worst people doing paid stuff too and if you pay them, you will get cheated by them!

Best place, gadgets and environment? Yes, most likely but it won’t be cheap. Get to choose the time and place? Yes, I agree too but for “BEST” time and “BEST” place, you will have to pay more. Can be in control and get far better treatment? Yes, sure as long as you can pay. Again this is all about opportunity cost.

What do you think?

Free stuff may not be free but paid stuff may not be useful and cheap as well. From my point of view, you shouldalways try to get the free stuff first if possible. There are a lot of useful free stuff out there. The question is whether you can make those free stuff become the useful one? A smart person usually can do that. If you can’t (doesn’t mean you’re stupid by the way), then probably you can start to consider paid stuff. Also, everything is about opportunity cost if you want to get a paid stuff. E.g. For this amount of payment, is it worth?

What is your comment? Do you think paid stuff are usually good one or the other way round?